GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. — Officials with the Guilford County Sheriff's Office said their first priority in an active shooter situation is to stop the threat.
Captain Brian Hall, the school resource officer captain for GCSO, said they were originally trained to form a team and go in to find the shooter. However, that has changed over the years.
"The mindset, I think at one time as if a single officer goes in alone and something would happen to them they are no help to anybody else in the building," Hall said. "So that was kind of the way we initially were trained decades ago and then it was just too many lives being lost for us to stand around outside waiting for backup."
An investigation is continuing into the police response to a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas in May that left 19 children and two adults dead. Some have criticized the officers for how long they took to take down the shooter.
"With every incident like that, we try to pick it apart, not so much to be critical but to learn something from it because there is always something you can learn from it," Hall said. "You can train over and over and over but there is an inherent degree of chaos built into these things that you cannot train for and some of the best training you get in active shooter is to look at other places that have had them."
Captain Hall said they train for active shooter situations about once a year. He said schools are not the only place active shooter situations can happen so people should be prepared.
"I just think it’s important for everyone to have a plan," said Hall. "It’s too late once gunfire starts to decide what you were going to do."